4mm (long) x 4.5mm (wide) cut-crystal bicones. Cut-crystal bicones have six sides rather than the four sides that ordinary bicones have.

Colors/description:

Clear glass with an AB (aurora borealis) coating on part of each beads. Purple and amber seem to be the most prevelant colors in the coating. (Czech beads have AB coatings that have a lot of silver in them; Chinese AB coatings are somewhat similar to Czech "iris" coatings.)

Hole size:

1mm (estimated).

Defects:

Bicones should be symmetrical from one end to the other, but with Chinese bicones, some are shorter on one end. Also, some beads may have chips around the holes, and an occasional bead may be lacking facets at one end. However, Chinese bicones are one-third the cost of Czech bicones, so it is worth dealing with more defects.

How photographed:

Under two daylight-balanced lamps.

Comments:

To the naked eye, Chinese bicones appear as perfect as Preciosa or Swarovski bicones, although I don't believe they actually are. Happily, they are much cheaper than those more-expensive beads. I consider them to be an adequate and economical substitute for Czech crystal bicones, so I may eventually switch over to the Chinese bicones entirely (unless my customers object). (It bears noting that 4mm Chinese crystal bicones are slightly larger than Czech bicones. Czech bicones are about .5 mm smaller in both dimensions.)

Regarding my picture, it is not very good. It is hard to see the shape of clear beads against a white background (I'm looking around for a suitable gray background to use for clear beads, but I haven't found one yet). Also, I made the mistake of bunching the beads too close together, which makes it even harder to see the shape (it's okay to bunch colored beads, but not clear beads). I apologize for the poor picture.